because they can only be read with one hand” (p. 40) [p. 40]. Without these “dangerous
books,” Jean-Jacques gives himself to other dangers. The continuation of the paragraph which
closes thus is well known: “It is sufficient for me to have defined the origin and first cause of
a propensity which has modified all my passions, and which, restraining them by means of
themselves, has always made me slow to act, owing to my excessive impetuosity in desire”
(p. 41) [p. 41]. The intention and the letter of this passage should be related to another page of
the Confessions (p. 444 [p. 459]. Cf. also the editors’ note), and to the page from which I
quote these lines: “for I have always had a fancy for reading while eating, if I am alone; it
supplies the want of society. I devour alternately a page and a morsel. It seems as if my book
were dining with me” (p. 269) [p. 278].
9.See editors’ note, p. 1569. [The English translation includes the sentence quoted in the
Pléiade note on p. 617.)
10. [Correspondance générale de J.-J. Rousseau (Paris, 1934), vol. 19, p. 242, vol. 20, p. 122,
the latter actually addressed to M. de Sartine, Lieutenant-general of police.]. See also the
Confessions (p. 109, editors’ note) .
11. Pages 331-32 [pp. 340-41] (italics added), Starobinski (La transparence et l’obstacle, p.
221) and the editors of the Confessions (p. 332, n.1) justly relate the use of the word
“supplement” to what is made of it on p. 109 [p. 111] (“dangerous means of assisting it” [a
literal translation would be “dangerous supplement”]) .
Part II: Chapter 3
1.Cf. La voix et le phénomène.
2.Here it would be appropriate to quote extensively from Vom Wesen des Grundes [Halle,
1931; translated into French as « Ce qui fait l’être-essentiel d’qn fondement ou ‘raison,’ « by
Henry Corbin, in Qu’est-ce que la métaphysique (Paris, 1951)] and Vom
((341))
Wesen der Wahrheit [(Frankfurt, 1943) ; translated into English as “Of the Essence of Truth”
by R. F. C. Hull and Adam Crick in Existence and Being (London, 1949) ; and into French as
De l’essence de la verité, by Alphonse de Waelhens and Walter Biemel (Louvain/Paris,
1948)1, particularly everything relating to the notions of Polis, Agathon, and Aletheia.
3.I shall refer to the following editions: Grammaire générale et raisonnée de Port-Royal, par
Arnauld et Lancelot; Précédée d’un Essai sur l’origine et les progrès de la Langue française,
par M. Petitot, et suivi par le Commentaire de M. Duclos, auquel on a ajouté des notes. Perlet
AN XI.-18o3.
4.Page 396. The most precise echo of this text is found, outside of the Essay, in the notes
grouped in the Pléiade edition under the title Prononciation (vol. 2, p. 1248) and in the
Streckeisen-Moultou edition (op. cit.), under the title Fragment d’un Essai sur les langues. In
his essay Rousseau connects the degradation of morals, the corruption of pronunciation, and
the progress of writing. He even cites the examples of corruptions whose occurrence he had
the dubious privilege of witnessing, and which are caused by a “fault of pronunciation in the
organ, or in the intonation, or in the habit.” “Words whose change in pronunciation I have
witnessed: Charolois [Sharolwa]—Charolès [Sharolay], secret [sucray]—segret [sugray],
presécuter—[perzcuter], etc.” All these matters are also to be found in the abbé Du Bos,
Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture (1719)
[Critical Reflections on Poetry,
Painting, and Music; with An Inquiry into the Rise and Progress of the Theatrical
Entertainments of the Ancients, tr. Thomas Nugent (London, 1748)1.
5.Page 397.
6.Page 421. “It is a people in a body that makes a language. It is by the con-vergence of an
infinity of needs, ideas, and physical and moral causes, varied and combined through a
succession of centuries, without the possibility of identifying the periods of change,
alterations, or progress. Often caprice decides; sometimes it is the subtlest metaphysics, which
eludes the reflection and knowledge of even those who are their authors. . . . Writing (I speak
of the writing of sounds) was not born through a slow and imperceptible progression: it was
many a century before it was born; but it was born all at once, like light.”
7.Pléiade edition (vol. 1, p. 56º, n. 3) .
8.Le rationalisme de Rousseau (1948), pp. 17-18. Rousseau et la science politique de son
temps (1950), p. 146.
9.Political Writings, I: ro. Cf. also [Charles William] Hendel, Jean-Jacques Rous-seau,
Moralist (London and
New York, 1934), vol. 1, pp. 66 f.
l0. Cf., infra p. 227 [p. 194].
11.I have already cited Derathé’s note. Cf. also Starobinski, Pléiade edition, vol. 3, P. 154, n.
2.
12.He is referring to Mandeville. See Starobinski’s note in the Pléiade edition of the
Discourse, to which I refer here (vol. 3, p. 154; Italics added.)
13.Italics added. The examples chosen by Rousseau are not insignificant: “Not to mention the
tenderness of mothers for their offspring and the perils they encounter to save them from
danger, it is well known that horses show a reluctance to trample on living bodies. One animal
never passes by the dead body of another of its species without being disturbed: there are even
some which give their fellows a sort of burial; while the mournful lowings of the cattle when
they enter the slaughter-house show the impressions made on them by the horrible spectacle
which meets them. We find, with pleasure, the author of The Fable of the Bees obliged to own
that man is a compassionate and sensible being, and laying aside his cold subtlety of style, in
the example he gives, to present us with the pathetic description of a man who, from a place
of confinement, is compelled to behold a wild beast tear a child from the arms of its mother,
grinding its tender limbs with its murderous teeth, and tearing its palpitating entrails with its
claws. What horrid agitation must not the eye-witness of such a scene experience, although he
would not be personally concerned! What anxiety would he not suffer at not being able to